I only discovered Liaden around the millenium myself ^^. When I had followed Pat Hodgell's journey to Meisha Merlin and saw that they released books by Diane Duane and then I thought why not try the Liaden collections - at the same time they were being reissued as paperbacks so I bought the rest in that way.

Some of the Anne McCaffrey books haven't aged so gracefully but the Crystal Singer trilogy, The Tower and the Hive series (mostly) and her first Petaybee trilogy with Elizabeth Moon (also her first Ship novel with Mercedes Lackey) still work for me like a charm. Some of the Pern books do it for me, too.

I have the Forgotten Beasts of Eld only in paperback. I discovered McKillip with the Riddlemaster of Hed and then looked around for her backlist.